From Perth we headed down towards the SW corner
of the continent at Margaret River before finally turning east for the run
home across the bottom. The Nullarbor had always threatened to be the
toughest stage of the journey, in the end it was not as bad as it could have
been, thanks no doubt to the 'training' we had endured down the west coast.
By the time we had crossed the Eyre Peninsular and reached Adelaide we were
starting to think of home, albeit with mixed feelings, one side wanted to
get home the other was enjoying the uncomplicated life and wasn't sure it
was a good idea to end it. (click on any picture
for a larger version)

South of Perth were
fields of lilies that you'd pay a hefty price for in florists back home

The colours of the SW
corner of WA at Yallingup made up for the disappointment that was
Dunsborough

More beautiful
Yallingup scenery

Down towards Margaret
River the paddocks were filled with wildflowers and other glorious
colours

Some local had painted
this 'roo crossing' not far from Margaret River.
A case of too
much wine perhaps.

Tea break along the
road near Margaret River

We
was dun with Dunsborough

One
thing we appreciated as we pedalled around from town to town or roadhouse to
caravan park was the authentic charm to be found just about everywhere. Out
the back of the Sandfire Roadhouse, the most islolated barren-looking
environment we had encountered, was evidence of a once-thriving local rodeo
scene, now a victim of the changing prorities of the local population.
Leaving Balaklava, north of Adelaide, we chanced upon an amazing wall of
ceramic paintings the likes of which we had never seen anywhere else. Just
about every little settlement had something going for it that reminded the
visitor of some element of heritage or culture.

Then
there was Dunsborough. Apparently it was a nice little town at some point
in the past. Now the visitor drives past a Florida-style golf course
development with kitschy little lakes and fountains, into a shopping
precinct of fake cobblestones and shops based on a heritage look but still
smelling of new paint and franchisees. To top of the rather less than stay,
the caravan park was the most expensive for the whole ride despite being way
out of town and having poorly drained tent sites around very average
facilities.

Just out
of this fake little town, up over a small hill, we returned to normality at
Yallingup, itself a little spot of tourist-based endeavours, but somehow
seemingly more genuine. From there we wandered off down to the paradise
that was Margaret River. I guess being a part of the unpretentious outback
for so long, the rather contrived atmosphere of a wine centre, with its
oversupply of BMW driving couples sipping overpriced chardies seemed just
plain incongruous and we weren’t sorry to head out of town after a brief
stopover.

Wildflowers at the top
of a climb in the
Karri forests near Pemberton

Even though we were a
bit early for the wildflowers' peak they still put on an amazing show

Finding somewhere to
have a tea break
wasn't hard even in the rain

From bad to good company near Pemberton

Mr Chalk the
know-it-all teacher

Setting up camp at
Steve's property

From
just south of Margaret River the road turned east and our spirits were
riding high, knowing the last leg was underway. Riding through the
scrub with occasional patches of wildflowers to compensate for the quite
undulating terrain was part of made riding special. After a good
couple of hours we chanced upon a couple of cyclists wending their way from
Albany to Perth, and we stopped to talk and swap stories, in the finest
tradition of the long distance touring cyclists.

It
wasn’t long before we wished we had kept pedalling. The male of the
couple turned out to be a schoolteacher, and his partner seemed rather
quiet, though we detected she wasn’t finding the ride easy. The old
saying that “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach”, probably
applied to this bloke. Within a minute of meeting us, he told us we
didn’t need all the baggage we had on board. He pointed to his rather
more sparse kit, declaring with the arrogance of someone not used to being
contradicted that he had all that was needed for a cycling tour. We
pointed out that we had had the best part of six months to fine tune our
load to the bare minimum for true long distance riding, but he was not to be
swayed, after all he was a teacher and therefore supremely knowledgeable.

Steve even gave us
some practice at
letting an engine do the work on an old
mining dumper he had restored

Declaring that time was precious we excused ourselves from the one-sided
conversation and in considerably less good humour headed for what the
cycling guide reckoned was a good riverside camping spot not far from
Pemberton. On arrival at the Donnelly River, we found the spot, but it had
been allowed to overgrow and there was mess from other campers spoiling the
ambience. On the other side of the road was a green grassy property with
what looked like perfect riverbanks to camp on, so on a whim we went in and
asked the owner, Steve, if we could camp. The winery across the road
had turned us down for a few square metres of grass but Steve took the time
to show us the softest grass on the riverbank away from the road. To cut a long story short, he
enthusiastically agreed, we set up tents, and then spent the rest of the day
and evening in his great company and departed next morning in great spirits
for the short ride into Pemberton.

So in
one day, we met a dropkick, who for the sake of this paragraph we’ll call Mr
Chalk, but later we met a top bloke, who for comparison’s sake, must be
called Steve Cheese.

Pemberton emerged from
a gloomy day of rain and presented us with the steepest main street of
the ride which we figured was typical for the area

One of the karri trees
that made the ride through the Pemberton area so memorable

Denmark was a nice
little town with a pot of gold waiting for us over there somewhere.
When we got there it was nowhere to be seen of course

Candidate for worst day of the ride #2

Pete enjoying the
scenery if not
the undulating roads

Steve, we takes our
hats off to you, and
whenever things got tough we realised
we actually had it pretty easy.

From
Pemberton the road heads south towards the coast before turning west in the
direction of Albany, winding and undulating through the Karri forests in a
spectacular part of the world. Along with the spectacle comes the penalty,
the topography. Although there was hardly a noticeable wind to help or
hinder, the journey was composed of non-stop ‘Tobleroning’, a cycling term
for heavy undulations.

From the
Atherton Tablelands half a continent away, right around through Broome, the
roads had been essentially flat and therefore, even when the wind gods
didn’t smile, it was rare to see less than 12 km/hr on the speedo. We knew
that the country around Pemberton was hilly, so we were prepared, but it was
still a frustrating ride. Unlike in a car, where the only thing a driver
notices is a slight shift in the loud pedal position as the road rises and
falls, a cyclist is only too aware of the all-pervading force of gravity,
especially with 40 odd kilos of dead-weight luggage to haul against it.
Even when the lengths of the ascents match the descents, the cyclist is not
spared. The rush of the downhill section is over in as little as two brief
minutes of 40 km/hr refreshing wind, then the load of the pedals is taken up
again as the speed drops to 8 km/hr, and for ten or more minutes muscles
strain against what feels like an anchor attached to the trailer. To top
off the toughness of the leg, we were riding through regular showers that
lifted the humidity to tropical levels.

We had
just pulled away from a welcome tea stop when I spotted a cyclist in a
pull-off area, and as custom dictated, we pulled in for a chat. Steve was
on the last few legs of a ride from Melbourne to Perth, and was preparing to
spend a few hours reading and resting. As we talked our own discomforts and
travails of the day’s ride quickly evaporated in admiration for this
cyclist’s determination. Turned out Steve had the use of only one side of
his body. His left leg and hand were clipped onto the bike but had no power
or useful function. Just to be riding a bike laden with panniers up and
down the hills with only half the power we had was an incredible
achievement, let alone out in the middle of nowhere with at least two day’s
of riding to cover the ground we had done just that day.

Even
though the road became easier not long after we said our goodbyes to Steve,
any tiredness or lack of enthusiasm we might have had could not surface, as
his strength and determination against the odds made our own efforts seem so
puny and it was many days before I again allowed myself to think our ride
was in any way tough.

On a ride around the
bay at Albany in between rain showers. We followed a cycle path
right around the bay. Is that a good thing to do on a day off?

We were fotunate to see
a couple of whales as we rode around Albany

Riding into the
Stirling Ranges north of Albany. It looked like we would have some
climbing to do but the road remained quite flat all the way through

Testing the tents

Albany
was a welcome stop after the challenges of the Pemberton forests and we had
the best part of two days to explore the picturesque scenery in between
scudding showers that drifted in from the Southern Ocean. The showers were
generally light with only moderate associated winds and even when we were
caught out at the end of the scenic cycle path we were dry by the time we
got back.

Several
of the locals had sung the praises of a fish and chips shop a couple of
kilometres up the road. The night was wet and we donned raincoats and
headed off on foot to enjoy this sumptious feast a couple of kilometres up
the road. We had quite a wait in the rather spartan waiting area of the
shop and with nowhere else dry enough on a wet night we ate in the same
small waiting area, on our laps as the shop was not designed for eating in.
As it turned out the food was quite ordinary so we could have saved
ourselves a drenching in the rain.

As we
started back a squall came in driving the rain horizontally with gusts of
more than 60 km/hr. Then first thought was for the gear back at the
campground, did we have our clothes away from the tent walls etc? With a
little trepidation we got back and inspected the tents. Not a drop had got
past or under the tent flies, the inside was as dry as the Pilbara, and this
despite rain that was coming in horizontally with gale force winds. My hat
goes off to the makers of the MSR Hubba Hubba tent, chosen for its
incredibly light weight more than its rain shedding capabilities, but it
passed the test with flying colours.

Another view of the
Stirling Ranges with some of the abundant wildflowers in the foreground

Only the second fog of
the entire ride, riding out of Ravensthorpe into the morning light

Although the tents were
waterproof, why pack up a wet one if you can avoid it, especially if
there's a readymade shelter thoughtfully provided

Most challenging topography

The benign and
innocent looking
landscape hid some
mammoth climbs and descents

The
title for the most challenging topography on our route was a four-way
contest between Gympie and Atherton Tablelands in QLD, and between Pemberton
and the roads around Ravensthorpe in SW WA. And the winner was… the roads
around Ravensthorpe.

While
the other areas have more undulations, the scale of the climbs and descents
on the South Coast Highway from Jerramungup to Ravensthorpe meant that for
most of the climbing sections, at 8 km/hr or less, involved continuous
exertion for up to 45 minutes with no respite, other than a quick 5 minute
scoot down the other side to the next river channel before again climbing
out. The reason for the large scale topography appeared to be the age of
the landscape, the rivers that flow south towards the Bight having cut
deeply into the landscape, albeit relatively gently. After the first couple
of long descents and climbs I pulled out the GPS and the next descent
measured 400’ down and nearly as much up again. This pattern continued all
the way to Ravensthorpe, including a punishing last ascent before finally
the road descended into Ravensthorpe and we made our weary way to the
campground.

Following in the tyre tracks of others

Not far
out of Norseman in the early stages of crossing the Nullarbor we pulled into
a rest area to boil the billy and headed for a low rock wall that looked
like it had been knocked up from left-over rocks used in roadworks. There
was a small gap between the two halves of the wall, and each side was an
ideal place to sit and put out the tea-making gear.

It was
while waiting for the water to boil that we noticed a tyre track leading
through the same gap that we had wheeled our bikes. It was different to
ours, being a real knobbly mountain tyre impression, rather than the
relatively smooth tracks created by our touring tyres. Although it should
not have come as a surprise that we would pull into the same area and head
for the same spot as other cyclists, it was still a surprising sight out
there in the almost absolute isolation of the Nullarbor. We pondered for a
while about how long it had been there and what style of cyclist was
crossing the Nullarbor on a fully-fledged mountain bike, until it was time
to pour the delicious refreshing golden nectar that was Bushells tea and
concentrate on whether there was a slice of fruit cake to go with it.

A restored sign warning
not to take the rabbit proof fence lightly, even if the fine would be
difficult to pay

Cape Le Grand near
Esperance was a welcome diversion and had the most amazingly blue water

How many other cyclists
have pulled into the same spot over the years?

Half a continent later…

"See you on the
Nullarbor" was meant as
a
tongue-in-cheek farewell way back in
time as well as distance.

Way back
at Sandfire Roadhouse south of Broome Pete had met up with a couple of motorbike tourers
heading around Australia the opposite way to our trip. As Warren and Fran
headed off they flippantly said they would see us on the Nullarbor in a
couple of months time.

Well,
despite the odds against seeing them, at Caiguna Roadhouse we were in the
final stages of packing up after eating breakfast at a table out the front
(there being no camp kitchen) when amongst the constant comings and goings
of all sorts of vehicles, a couple of bikies wandered over and sure enough,
it was the couple from Sandfire Roadhouse. The amazing thing
was they had originally planned to ride past Caiguna and continue on to Balladonia when,
on a whim, they called in for a coffee and a pit stop. There had been many
people that we had met on the ride who we ran into all the way around,
mostly caravanners who often travelled similar distances to us each week, but we never
pretended that we could say to someone we would see them later on and
actually expect to both be there at the same time. This
then was the exception that all rules must have.

The most frustrating day

Eucla, so near and
yet so far. At this
point, only
5 kms to go. I was still facing
half an hour of
battling headwinds and a grind up the hill

As we
cycled across the Nullarbor the wind became more and more of a headwind. From Balladonia Roadhouse along the longest stretch of straight road in the
country we had varying winds, light headwinds to start but just when we
thought it was getting tougher it swung around and became a moderate
tailwind for a couple of hours allowing us to post the longest distance
yet, 181 kms. Then followed a couple of average days with gradually
increasing headwinds. The last 30kms into Mundrabilla Roadhouse was into
the teeth of a moderate headwind and I was not keen to continue if it didn’t
abate.

Next day
the easterly was still blowing moderately and having woken up feeling
ordinary I was tempted to pike for the day, but after being shouted brekky
by a couple of fellow cyclists from Dubai (more about them later) the 65km
stretch didn’t seem impossible, even into a strong headwind.

Knowing
full well we would be crawling along we set off at 9am and I settled on a
speed of 14 km/hr, head down and concentrating solely on putting the kms
under the wheels. As the day progressed the headwind increased to over 30
km/hr straight into the face, and the speed dropped to 12 km/hr or less.
After a cuppa at the 24 km mark I expected to pedal for another 2 hours and
have another rest but as the wind got stronger I knew it would be more than
difficult to get going again after another break so I kept going. It took
three and a half hours to do 41 kms, an abysmal average of just over 11
km/hr. I’m sure the slight streamlining effect of the trailers helped, with
large front and rear panniers I doubt more than 9 km/hr would have been seen
towards the end.

Looking back from the
escarpment at
Eucla
along the road of torture

However
the frustrating element of the day was not so much the sloooow speed, rather
it was how little progress was apparent once Eucla appeared on the distant
escarpment. The first sign of Eucla appeared in the distance as an
indistinct mirage way off, initially it looked like dust-coloured sails
floating in the air. Something twigged in my long-forgotten memories and I
remembered seeing the same sight as an 8yo kid from the back seat of an EH
Holden wagon crossing the rutted dirt road that was the highway in 1964. As
the ‘sails’ gradually resolved into dunes floating in the mirage, little
boxes became visible on the distant escarpment. Eucla was in sight. But
frustratingly, with the clear desert air, and the lack of meaningful speed,
every time I looked up after pedalling for ten minutes or more, the little
boxes seemed no closer.

Eventually basic physics prevailed and the forward motion of the bicycles
translated into tangible distance, and the long-awaited ‘Eucla 5km’ sign was
passed. Only a couple of straights, around a bend and a climb up the
escarpment was between me and a long cold ginger beer or several. The edge
of Eucla was clear as a bell almost close enough to reach out and touch, yet
it took a full half an hour of gruelling effort to finally get there. At
the top of the escarpment I looked back to see if I could see Pete, but even
the nearest vehicle was just a dot in the distance, and no sign of an even
smaller dot anywhere.

Pete
rolled in just as buggared maybe 30 minutes later, he had taken the view
that it wasn’t worth fighting the wind, and his day wasn’t that much longer
overall despite accepting a 1-2 km/hr slower pedalling speed.

There
was no real sense of achievement having beaten such a strong headwind, the
frustration factor took over and made the day not one to remember fondly.
It was the slowest average speed of the whole ride despite being on a
pancake flat road.

The green green grass
of Eucla's campsite. Just out of view were several polocrosse
horses on their way home to NSW after a tournament in Perth

The old telegraph
station, a 5km walk
down from Eucla across the dunes which was a pleasant distraction from
the daily pedal

My favourite scene of
the ride, the jetty
that served Eucla for many years, now slowly falling victim to wind and
tide

Halfway along the
longest straight piece of road Australia. The rain in the distance
failed to materialise for us but it did bring a tailwind

There's them that sits
and thinks, and them that just sits. Not a lot to think about
behind Caiguna Roadhouse apart from the barren ground

The camping at Caiguna
roadhouse was better right up the back away from the noise of the
diesel generator which was running 24/7 in a tin shed

Nothing like muesli

All this doesn't
equal a single bowl of muesli

All
through the ride we started the day with a big bowl of muesli and milk, and
sometimes bread and fruit, or even toast if we had the luxury of a camp
kitchen. Generally this was enough to get us through the first three hours
of pedalling before the petrol tank gauge hit empty and lunch was called,
often around 11 am. On the east coast where shops and cafes were easily
found ‘lunch’ would often be a big brekky in a cafe. If we had to ride past
1pm we would have a second lunch as well, and then a big protein laden
dinner.

The two
German cyclists from Dubai, Tanja and Wally, whom we met on the Nullarbor
and were meeting up with every now and then, shouted us a big brekky at
Mundrabilla Roadhouse prior to heading off into the headwind to Eucla.
Forgoing our bland muesli for this gift of a flavour-filled plate of eggs
and bacon, sausages and hash browns, mushrooms and toast we hoed in thinking
that the sheer bulk of food would see us through past lunchtime.

Well,
when we stopped at the 24km mark after less than two hours pedalling we were
both hungry and had to dip into the panniers for an early lunch. We had
suspected that there was nothing like a good serving of low GI muesli to
provide energy and burn up the previous night’s protein-laden dinner. The
combination of a big steak and three veg dinner with a high carb breakfast
fitted in with our understanding of how food is processed for energy as well
as stamina. While hardly a scientific test it was enough to convince us
that muesli contributed mightily to the success of the whole ride.

Hot and cold on the Nullarbor

After
Eucla and the Border Village the road runs along very close to the cliffs
marking the Great Australian Bight, and as in most parts of the country you
would expect the close proximity of the ocean to provide a cooling effect.
Not along the Nullarbor though. The cliffs act as a barrier against any
tendency for an onshore wind to develop and all we could feel as we pedalled
through the vast emptiness was a hot dry northerly.

That was
until mid-afternoon, when a mild front moved through bringing some unsettled
wind patterns. We could see a change in the clouds and hoped that there
might be a little rain to cool things down. Suddenly, from riding through a
northerly wind at close to 40 degrees, there were little chilly puffs and
eddies, mixing cooler air in with the hot. At one stage, within a couple of
turns of the pedals, the air changed from over 35 degrees to maybe 20
degrees, and for 50 metres it’d be refreshingly cool, until the hot dry wind
again replaced the intruding air. The effect was just as though we had
ridden into a frig, then out the other side, and so on. This cycling
pattern of hot and cold went on with decreasing intensity for half an hour
or so, until eventually the warm to hot northerlies resumed and that was the
end of the strange temperatures of the Nullarbor.

Tanja and Wally from
Germany after catching up with us at a tea break on the Nullarbor

The escarpment
overlooking the coastal Nullarbor plain. Madura Roadhouse is halfway
down the hill

Even in the middle of
the Nullarbor the washing has to be done, there being no rest for the
weakened.

Dry throats and no help from water

The
Nullarbor was by my reckoning the driest air of the whole ride. So dry in
fact that the intake of water by our plumbing systems wasn’t sufficient to
counter the amount our bodies were using. Up in the Pilbara I had tried
with limited success to drink one sip every 500m and three or four every
2.5kms, but even with that regular replenishment I could feel my mouth and
throat becoming drier as the day wore on. Most mornings I would
deliberately not start drinking any water for the first hour or so. This
flew in the face of perceived wisdom but I noticed that undiluted spittle in
the mouth provides a moist coating that water from the drink bottle tended
to flush away. After an hour or so the dry air overcame this effect and
drinking sips was the only way to prevent total dessication of the mouth and
throat.

Once I
realised that the Nullarbor air was so dry, I started to breath only through
my nose, which helped prevent the mouth and throat from getting dry and
consequently sore. This strategy limited the air intake somewhat and often
in the second half of each day’s ride I was pedalling 1-2 km/hr slower than
if I had been breathing with mouth open. And no matter how much I sipped,
the mouth and throat just got drier and drier. I would take a mouthful and
hold it for 250m, then swallow it, and by the time another 250m had
disappeared under the tyres the throat would again be as dry as the paddocks
around us.

The
hottest day was after leaving Nullarbor roadhouse, the temperature was
in the low 30s as we left at 8am and by early afternoon was into the 40s. Pockets
of air on some of the more protected sections of road felt like we had
briefly ridden into an oven. No matter how quickly we sipped our water
bottles, we were slowly drying out, luckily the lunch rest stop at 70kms had
a water tank. Despite the obligatory placard warning that the water may not
be fit to drink we filled up our bottles and drank as much as we dared. It
was only 21 kms further to Yalata Roadhouse so after lunch we pushed on
through the heat. The roadhouse was boarded up but had big rainwater tanks
and once again we drank and drank to rehydrate somewhat. It was a further
52 kms to Nundroo Roadhouse which would not have been possible without the
extra water from the tanks. A sure sign I was unable to hydrate properly
was a large crack in my lower lip. Finally after 143 kms on an almost
dangerously hot day we made Nundroo. My diary records that on arrival at
the roadhouse I had three flavoured milks and an orange juice, followed over
the next hour by three schooners of iced water, and I was still
pathologically thirsty until well after dinner.

The huge
volume of liquids that we were forced to put through our systems upset the
electrolyte balance and there were some days in the Pilbara as well as the
Nullarbor when my hands and fingers would cramp up, sometimes for hours at a
time. Towards the end of the Nullarbor I tried sports electrolyte drinks
and they appeared to help with restoring normal tendon functioning.

Overall,
it appears that there were certain conditions in which it was impossible to
keep up with our bodies’ usage of water. This was OK in the short term and
our schedule catered for sufficient rest stops to recharge. It did
highlight the necessity to carry adequate water so that on hot dry days we
could continue the throughput of life-giving water to keep the pedals
turning.

Another tea stop on the
Nullarbor interrupted once again by those damn Germans Wally and Tanja

Not many things you can
overtake on a bicycle but slow Germans are easy pickings

They even wave as you
sail majestically past their slow
European bicycles

Tyre pressures matter

A couple
of times on the ride the energy didn’t seem to be there, even though no
physical symptoms were apparent. Leaving Camooweal I was having to stop
pedalling regularly to avoid running into the back of Pete’s bike. Turned
out his front wheel dynamo had somehow developed a load (short circuit?) and it was as though
he was climbing a constant hill. Generally though, the bikes rode well.

After
Ceduna we stopped at Smoky Bay, and the next day I didn’t seem to have any
energy. I felt fine but the pedals seemed a bit heavier than normal and
Pete was having trouble not running up behind me. Nothing about the tyres
felt any different so I didn’t initially check them. I just assumed I had a
mild virus or something sapping my energy. After quite a while I happened
to detect a slight change in feel of the steering as I turned into a corner
and looking down the front tyre did appear to be slightly bulgier than
normal where it contacted the road. An inspection revealed that it had
dropped to under 20 lbs of pressure. A quick pump-up restored its normal
70-80 lbs and when I resumed pedalling it was like I had gained a new lease
on life.

We had
been keeping an eye on the tyre pressures right through the whole ride,
finding that over 4-5 days they would sometimes drop from 70 to 40 lbs at
which point the rolling efficiency became just noticeably less. After
fitting new tyres in Perth the rate of pressure loss diminished and we got a
bit careless in checking the pressures as the tyres seemed to be always up.

The
experience out of Smoky Bay served to ram home the importance of keeping
good tyre pressures on any long ride. At the optimum 70 lbs pressure our
flat road speed was probably 1 km/hr faster than when the tyres had dropped
to 40 lbs, and at least 3-4 km/hr faster than at 20 lbs or so. That
difference would translate to an extra hour’s effort over a whole day if not
detected.

The road goes ever on,
this one pointing down the west side of the
Eyre Peninsular

The scenery on the Eyre
Peninsular started to remind us of our own countryside around Canberra

Beautiful vistas such
as this on the Eyre Peninsular showed why it was one of our favourite
areas

The Streaky Bay gift

After
the Nullarbor and a good rest day in Ceduna we headed down the west coast of
the Eyre Peninsular. As we rolled into Streaky Bay with a strong tailwind
at 40km/hr on the flat, after being buffeted by gusts and being rained on
earlier, life seemed good and carefree. The caravan park was in a
picturesque location at the water’s edge, which, as the wind swung a little
more westerly, proved to be right in the teeth of a slowly-developing gale.
With winds already up to 50km/hr off the beach we elected to book into the
Foreshore Tourist Park but not put the tents up until later hoping the wind
would die.

To our
surprise, just after we had booked a tent site, the manager came running out
and gave us a key to a cabin. We were pleasantly surprised to say the least
and accepted his charitable offer gladly, as the prospect of sitting around
in a gale did not inspire us. The wind did die to a gentle breeze by
sundown, so keeping the cabin wasn’t strictly necessary, but we didn’t want
to look a gift horse in the mouth, and we enjoyed the comforts of home while
we could. By this time we were so used to camping in the tents that Pete
decided to put his tent up around the back, while I put my sleeping mat on
the floor of the cabin, soft mattresses being less comfortable than the half
inch of sleeping mat I was used to.

One degree of separation

Even though we beat
them soundly in
the speed
dept Wally and Tanja
shouted us dinner in Adelaide

We met
up with Wally and Tanja, the two German cyclists from Dubai whom we met on
the Nullarbor, in Ceduna and as ‘official’ representatives of the Aussie
cycling community we presented them with a genuine ridgy-didge “I crossed
the Nullarbor” certificate, signed and duly witnessed. We then bid them
farewell as they headed on down to Port Lincoln, with a vague promise to
meet up in Adelaide.

Fast
forward two weeks and we were in Adelaide. We hadn’t heard from the
Germans and assumed they had been and gone and we’d missed them. We busied
ourselves catching up with the few people we knew in Adelaide and after
dropping in on Pete’s local Xerox office, headed out on the bikes to Henley
Beach and on down to Glenelg. In the middle of the shopping strip,
thousands of people all milling about, we had just come out of a bakery
preparing to head back home, when we heard a familiar voice across the road,
and there stood Tanja and Wally. It was their second last day in Adelaide.

We were
about 10kms from our digs at the caravan park near the city, and only in
Glenelg for an hour in total, so to run into our friends was a truly
remarkable coincidence. We made the most of it by catching the tram out
again for dinner and seeing them off in some sort of style, (even though it
was their shout it still counts doesn’t it?).

Some amazing public
artwork in Balaklave north of Adelaide. A wall full of these
ceramic paintings

In the Botanical
Gardens in Adelaide, a sculpture with a hidden purpose

The Barossa provided
some interesting combinations of red roses and grapevines

Adelaide

If I was
ordered to leave Canberra and told I would be provided with digs within a
couple of km of a city centre, my choice, I would choose Adelaide as the
best place in Australia for a cyclist to live (capital cities that is).
Although Perth had a more comprehensive network of cycle paths, Adelaide was
just an ideal place to ride around. All around the city centre was a
network of paths through the all-encircling parks, in the CBD proper the
roads are wide and the traffic tolerant, and the arterial roads (out to the
beaches at least) are dead flat and have cycle lanes. Not once in the whole
time I was in Adelaide did I feel uncomfortable or threatened by the
traffic, mainly because 90% of the riding was off the traffic lanes anyway.

When I
compare the reception we got in Brisvegas simply trying to cycle up towards
the city, with the innate cycle-friendly nature of Adelaide, the contrast
opens out to a veritable chasm between the two styles of traffic and cycle
management. For me there’s just no contest, Adelaide is beautiful one day
for cycling, perfect the next.

Setting a new record

The section of road
where I set an Australian
record for bicycle speed with trailer for that month
in that area before noon on a maroon bike

As we
departed the Barossa we were warned about a big climb at Accommodation Hill,
perhaps the locals were thinking of the other side of the hill because it
was just a brief 10 minute climb to a lookout where we could see the road
snaking eastwards along the level plain several hundred feet below. After
taking in this view we resumed the ride and headed down into the plain on a
smooth descent, wide shoulder and all. Sensing that the conditions were
right I gave my bike free rein and with some assistance in top gear
eventually saw 67 km/hr appear on the speedo.

For a
lot of cyclists used to hooning down hills at 80 km/hr this sounds like no
big deal, but none of them would be hauling a trailer that has a special
sticker warning owners not to exceed 40 km/hr under any circumstances.
Truth be known I was hardly aware of the trailer behind the bike, there was
no vibration and after 14,000 odd kms I was pretty used to the subtle change
of behaviour it introduced into the bike’s handling.

That was
the record for the top speed of the ride by about 5 km/hr, the previous best
speed was set between Wallaroo and Balaklava only 150 odd km to the west, on
another long wide descent from a lookout to a flat plain. Must be a South Australia
thing.

Entering Victoria for
the first time. The graffiti on the sign has been removed thanks
to Photoshop

The camping ground at
Lake Cullulleraine, set in the middle of a bone dry plain west of
Mildura

Why pedal when you can
rest up on the shores of a lake in soft green grass under a shady willow

Statistics

Stats as
a rule are boring but here are a few just to make you yawn before
proceeding:

Total
distance pedalled 15,840 kilometres, of which ~3480 was up the east coast to
Cairns, ~4150 across the top to Broome, ~2530 down to Perth and around
5,680 back to Canberra via the SW of WA and following the Murray River to
Albury.

We had
216 days away from home, the average speed for that time was 72 kms per
day. Take out rest days and the number of cycling days was 172 giving an
average distance of 91 km each pedalling day.

The
average speed around Australia worked out to 19.3 km/hr while we were
pedalling. The slowest daily average was 13 km/hr into Eucla with a 30+
km/hr headwind, the fastest daily average was 26 km/hr towards Three Ways in
the NT, with a 30km/hr tailwind. (Note that if you take the average of the
fastest and slowest days, the figure is almost exactly the average for the
whole ride. This reinforces my theory that wind direction rather than
topography is the main determining factor in average speeds.)

One day,
out near Barkly Homestead, on one of the long lonely and frankly not very
scenic stretches road, my mind began to wander and for some reason I started
to wonder how many pedal strokes we would attain for the whole ride.
Totally unscientifically I estimated that with the number of hills, level
sections and head and tailwinds we faced over the whole ride the average of
all gear usage would be somewhere in the middle of the 27 gears available.
So, to pass the time, I counted the total number of pedal strokes it took to
advance one kilometre in the middle gear. The figure came out to a nice
round 400. With my mathematical genius and a calculator I have been able to
extrapolate a figure for the whole 15,840 kms: and the answer is about
63,360,000 left and right pedal strokes in total. You needed to know that.

My sister Belinda and
Oliver drove
down from Balranald to say g'day at Robinvale on the Murray

The bridge at Tooleybuc
where we arrived in the rain and

One of the most
picturesque camping grounds was at Cohuna with the river just metres
from the tents

Familiar faces

Rod Barnes after
chucking a uie
to say g'day on the Hume Highway

Rod and Betts stopped
in to the caravan
park in Yass, just 50km from home

Not far
from home along the Hume Highway on the second last major leg, between
Jugiong and Yass, we were tootling along with only half of the day’s 65km
left to ride when a pickup and trailer pulled over in front of us and out
hopped Rod Barnes, a mate from way back. Turned out he was heading for
Wangaratta and mindful that we might be somewhere along the road had spotted
us going the other way and chucked a u-turn at the bottom of the hill and
driven back to say g’day. It was good to see such a familiar face and
brought home the feeling that within 48 hours it would all be over after
seven long months.

Later
on, at the caravan park in Yass, we got a phone call from another Canberra
friend, Rod Hewitt Cook, who had been following the ride with great interest
but was leaving for Queensland the day before we were to ride triumphantly
into Lennox Gardens. Never mind, he said, he would go via the Newell
Highway which meant an exit via Yass. Next morning sure enough, Rod and
Betty stopped in for an hour or so and a cuppa, and then departed north
while we meandered slowly down towards Hall, on the outskirts of Canberra,
to camp for the last time within sight of the end of the ride. We couldn’t
just ride in and finish because there was to be a welcome at Lennox Gardens
at 2 pm, we were adamant we were going to arrive on the dot of two and the
safest way to ensure nothing could go wrong was to be in sight of the finish
with a day to spare.

Had a nice few hours
with Pete's friends near Yarrawonga. This view is of their garden

Camping behind the pub
at Tarcutta, there being no actual camping ground

Not sure if it's legal
to ride past the Dog on the Tuckerbox without a photo, so playing it
safe here

Did we ever leave?

Riding in to Lennox
Gardens 231 days after
leaving from the same spot

The end
of the ride was at once an anticlimax and a climax to the whole seven
months. We rode in to Lennox Gardens to a welcome from around 50 friends
and relatives seven months and a day after riding out on that chilly May
morning. A couple of interviews and a photo op preceded an official welcome
by Pete’s work and a local government minister, and in between I was pretty
much in a daze, catching up with friends and getting used to the idea of
being back.

After a
while the hullabaloo died down and some had drifted off and I had a few
moments to look out over the lake towards Black Mountain, a very familiar
view, and for a brief moment it seemed I had never left. I expected to find
that feeling returning after a few days back, but to have it manifest itself
within an hour of getting off the bike was pretty remarkable. It was
honestly, for a few moments, difficult to grasp the concept that I had been
away for seven months and ridden almost 16,000 kms right around the
continent, so familiar were the faces, sights and sounds all around.

I still
find it hard to make sense of the time and distance involved, the facts
speak for themselves and yet when I try and rationalise the achievement into
some sort on manageable mental concept, it’s almost as though I had stepped
out of myself for that period, and only stepped back in after the return.
The person who rode around Australia was almost an alter ego, who jumped
ship shortly after the ride’s end and still hangs about, separated by a
subtle but nevertheless tangible division of character.

Testing out an unopened
section of the Hume Highway near Gundagai. Yay! No traffic!

Resting up on a warm
day in Jugiong, last stop before Yass and only two days left to ride

Back in familiar
country, we started to feel right at home again with landscapes like
this all around